Stone Lite Espresso Machine Review

When it comes to modern espresso machines, many manufacturers have gone all-in on the philosophy of constant innovation. Compared to even five years ago, today the standard home espresso machine boasts far more features and controls than we could have imagined; it reminds me a bit of how all TVs are flat screens now and wifi enabled. But, like many of us who pine for a time before the Internet, I too pine for the era of simplicity that existed before PIDs and flow control were everywhere. That’s why Stone Espresso has me so excited.

The Design

The Stone Lite is what I imagine a cross between the Bezzera BZ10 and Rocket Porta Via might look like. It’s very compact at just under 9” wide and is one of the rare prosumer machines in our catalog that breaks the mold and uses a custom group head design as opposed to an E61. Just like the BZ group found on the BZ10, the Stone group is also made of chrome plated brass and electrically heated with cartridge heaters. It also uses a solenoid valve to control water flow and ultimately is considerably smaller than an E61 overall. Thanks to the cartridge heaters the Stone Lite is ready to brew and steam in just 10 minutes.

What is perhaps the group’s most unique feature by far is the fact that the brew paddle is actually located on top of it and is actuated by turning it left and right. The paddle is also a bit of a cap and is made from a heat resistant plastic. It feels natural to turn and solid enough to last for a long time. The decision to put the paddle on top of the group is part of the reason why the machine is so narrow. By eliminating the space that you’d otherwise need for an E61 brew lever and discharge duct, you reclaim a pretty decent amount of real estate on the drip tray.

Visually the machine has a round square motif that repeats throughout the group, the steam knob and the pressure gauge. The Stone logo is youthful and playful, and can be found inside the pressure gauge and on the side and back panels of the Stone Lite machine. At just 14” tall you’ll have no issues fitting just about anywhere in your kitchen and the housing is available in three colors, black, white, and premium (aka chrome).

Stone and Rocket Espresso

If you didn’t know it already, Stone is actually owned and operated by the same people as Rocket Espresso (think ECM and Profitec). While the machines are very different from a feature standpoint, the soul and passion behind the two brands are very reminiscent of one another. Similar to Rocket, Stone is a design oriented brand whose tagline “Reinventing the Coffee Space” was originally created by longtime Rocket design consultant and cyclist Brent Backhouse who we recently interviewed in my article on coffee and cycling (I’ll link that below for you). Like Rocket, Stone is all about making a bold statement, albeit a slightly smaller one.

Not Quite an E61 But…

As I mentioned, the Stone machines feature their own proprietary brew group design that is electrically heated with a dedicated heating element but it’s not a completely unique design. I say that because the group is compatible with E61 style portafilters and shower screens. This is a nice touch because that opens up the Stone machines for customization with a number of pro-brewing upgrades and of course bottomless portafilters.

A Brief Word on the Rocket Porta Via

Before I continue, I wanted to reflect briefly on the Rocket Espresso Porta Via. The Porta Via is a super compact and portable E61 group espresso machine that was designed to be portable, hence the name Porta Via. The Porta Via is actually an incredibly neat bit of engineering with a dual chambered boiler that allows it to brew and steam at the same time. I remember asking Andrew Meo (the CEO of Rocket at the time) if they had ever considered making a portafilter that wasn’t, well, portable. His response at the time was “no” but looking at the design of the Porta Via and now the Stone Lite, the position of the power switch, the pressure gauge and the steam wand, I can’t help but wonder if the Porta Via was indeed the precursor to the Stone machines.

Brewing and Steaming

The Stone is equipped with 1.5 L heat exchanger boiler which has a dedicated 0.8 L chamber for steam. As a bit of trivia, the total capacity of the boiler is actually larger than the machine’s reservoir which is only 1.2 L. From a workspace standpoint there’s actually a bit more room than you might think. Portafilter clearance is around 3.625” under the spouts and the drip tray is adequately deep thanks to the Stone group using an internal solenoid instead of an E61 discharge tube.

You can comfortably fit a pair of espresso cups or small cappuccino cups on the 8.375” x 5.5” tray along with an espresso scale or a larger latte sized cup. The capacity of the drip tray is another story however and it’s actually a bit smaller than appears. Similar to the Rancilio Silvia, the frame of the drip tray surrounds a smaller insert that collects water from both the brew group and the solenoid valve. There are no floats or other visual indicators to alert you to the volume of liquid in the insert so you’ll want to make a habit of checking to make sure it doesn’t get too high, especially because the insert is held in by a magnet and has a tendency to pop out when being removed. Based on my personal testing, you ideally want to empty the insert at around 8oz which visually has the water level roughly parallel with the back end of the insert that sits beneath the solenoid valve.

In terms of the hands-on tactile experience, the Stone is quite substantial despite its size. Many smaller single-boiler machines will slide across the counter when locking in the portafilter, requiring you to brace the machine to prevent it from moving. I’m happy to report that this isn’t the case with the Stone. For brewing I found the paddle group design to be comfortable and intuitive enough that I didn’t really miss the E61 lever. Given the smaller size of the boiler, brewing will cause the pressure in the boiler to drop slightly but in my testing I found that I was able to still achieve a vigorous roll with six ounces of milk. Based on our testing, frothing takes around 23 seconds +/- a second or so.

 My recommendation is to brew and steam at the same time. The pressure held throughout the steaming process and I was able to create latte art quality foam, albeit in slightly more time than it would take on a machine with a larger or higher wattage boiler.

Larger volumes of milk may prove difficult as the pressure tends to dip around 0.5 bar after sustained use which is something to keep in mind. If you're interested in experimenting though, the LUCE's steam wand is compatible with Rocket's four pack of additional steam tips, so more holes may help to create a roll when working with larger volumes. As a final note, there’s also no hot water wand so this is first and foremost a machine for milk drink enthusiasts.

Recommended Coffees

Interestingly, the boiler design does not fully heat brew water inside the heat exchanger, instead finishing heating at the brew group with a 200W heating element. The design produces very consistent results and our testing found that unlike most heat exchangers, the Stone Lite did not require a cooling flush to prevent brew water from overheating. Based on our testing and the design of the Stone Lite, we found that our Buzzopolis blend and Guatemala single origin coffees both worked well as straight espresso, and of course Crema Wave, especially in milk drinks. 

Final Thoughts

These days it’s rare to find machines that aren’t just variations on something that I’ve seen before, or an incremental update to an existing design. I’m happy to say that the Stone Lite is neither of those things. It's an entirely new kind of product that looks to address the customer who wants on-demand milk drinks while limiting the investment of space and budget normally required by a prosumer espresso machine. As someone who loves compact machines, the Stone Lite is very appealing to me and I’m curious to see how the design will allow home baristas to renegotiate the relationship between their kitchen and their coffee habit.

Photography by Grace Walker

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